


When In Rome

by Whreflections



Category: BioShock
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Atlas is Not Frank Fontaine, Atlas is Real, Blood, Blood As Lube, Blood and Gore, Consensual Necrophilia, Dear God that is the weirdest tag I've ever typed, Intense Masochism, M/M, Mild Gore, Mildly Dubious Consent, No Lube, Questionable Would You Kindly Use, Rough Sex, So really, Temporary Character Death, Would You Kindly (Bioshock)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 19:47:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4718300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alternate Rapture where Jack was just a member of a budding slave army, Atlas steals him the chaos of war.  He means only to make him free, give him a home and treat him like a real man rather than a lab rat, but rabbit holes run deep and Atlas has just stepped into his.  After the death of his wife and child, after he's already begun to form a relationship he can't quite define with the young man he saved, the end of the war brings changes he never could have predicted.  To be allowed to survive, Fontaine's former slaves will fight an arena for the entertainment of the citizens, a testament to Fontaine's failure to seize power and a steady stream of revenue.  </p><p>Against his screaming morals, Atlas figured that if Jack's going to be mutilated on a regular basis, he might as well learn to enjoy it.  It's a good plan, and it works, but sometimes the consequences are a little harder to bear than others.  Killing the man you love once is hard; doing it a hundred times is enough to make anyone start to feel they're losing their goddamn mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When In Rome

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I _think_ I covered everything in those warnings, I _really_ think I did, but this fic is deeply fucked up and if I missed anything that upsets someone I apologize profusely and will add a tag for that thing ASAP. 
> 
> So before we get to the good part(oh God at least I hope it’s good lmao), here’s a few things I think need saying—
> 
> 1\. I have been playing Bioshock for a total of like five days. Usually before I write for a fandom I’ve immersed myself in it a couple weeks at LEAST so this is rare but hey it occasionally happens when I’m just super fucking inspired. 
> 
> 2\. I am not that far in the game I don’t think, but given that I couldn’t keep myself from searching for fic the very first night I played, I know lots of things I technically shouldn’t, lmao I think I’ve read like 90% of AO3’s stash of jatlas, at this point. And searched the tumblr tag. Extensively. 
> 
> 3\. While I know plenty I technically shouldn’t, I’m also very new to this fandom and still playing the first game and I don’t know everything. That’s part of why I wanted to write an AU Rapture verse here…any mistakes I make/people I forget/don’t know enough about to write properly will be less glaring and some things will be entirely possible because hey, AU! XD 
> 
> 4\. I also wanted this to be an AU because I kept seeing people on tumblr and in fic notes and the old kink memes saying things about how they wish this ship had a little more fluff, maybe some consensual sex, some hand holding and love, etc. I wanted to set up an Atlas-is-real verse and do those things, have Atlas be a fucking amazing boyfriend and really love Jack. 
> 
> And um. He definitely does, here. But I’m not sure how much this actually counts as fluff given that I just sat down and wrote something that necessitates the tag “consensual necrophilia” *facepalm* 
> 
> I’m going to the special hell. 
> 
> (At the bottom of the fic, I'll give a spoiler-y outline of all the WYK uses, just in case anyone wants to make sure they're okay with those before they read.)

He hasn’t been to church in years, but old bits and pieces of it come to him at moments like this, snatches drifting in between pained cracks in his shabby resistance.  Down here, remembering the past doesn’t do anyone a damn bit of good. 

Jack’s still in the arena, blood spilling over the crackling fingers he’s got pressed to the gash between his ribs.  There are bodies all around him, one still twitching until Jack lets his wrench slip from slick, shaking fingers to fall against the splicer’s skull with a crack.  The crowd roars and Jack’s neck arches, pleased and weary, head rolling to the side until his eyes fall on Atlas’s silhouette.  He’s bloodied and beautiful; a gladiator of old seeking the favor of his god.  It’s then that Atlas remembers _his_ , his thoughts stumbling on old lessons and the musty smell of books in a Dublin cathedral on a warm Sunday afternoon.  He never has known when to keep his mouth shut, not as a man and not then, listening to tales of the coliseum and the importance of Christian virtue in the face of death. 

_But wouldn’t God have blessed them more if they fought back?  All I’m meanin’, Sister, is, you can’t please God if you’re dead.  Wouldn’t you be doin’ better to live, and worry later about the how?_

He’d been sent to the corner for an Our Father and twenty Hail Mary’s, to contemplate why exactly he was wrong, not that she’d explained it to his satisfaction.  After losing his own father young and hearing the tales of his grandfather lost in the Great War, he’d known as a boy what so many died trying to learn—there’s nothing pretty about endings, no matter what the hell the damn poets say. 

There’s no chance of Jack hearing him or even seeing him clear in the shadows from this distance, but he whispers the words he always does anyway, the words he’ll say again soon enough with Jack clinging to him. 

“That’s my boy.  Good boy, Jackie.” 

In the arena, Jack shivers. 

==========

Like everything in this damned place, Atlas has had to learn that his promises are malleable.  They have to be, if he wants to keep any piece of them at all. 

The day he stepped up to take control of Jack and spirit him away from Fontaine’s grasp, he’d promised Jack he’d never let anyone hurt him again.  He’d swept him out of being a pawn and into a home, treated him like a man despite the marks on his wrist that made him anything but in Rapture’s eyes.  Moira fed him home cooked food for the first time in his life; Patrick played with him behind the safety of their locked door.  With a set of Chinese checkers spread out between his little boy and the ragged, haunted kid technically half as young as Patrick’s six years, he’d heard Jack laugh for the first time. 

He wonders, sometimes, if they might have stayed like that, if the war hadn’t gone on quite so long as it did.  Hell, he wonders lots of things.  None of it makes a damn bit of difference.  All roads lead to Rome, someday; he believes that.  Whatever else the war over Fontaine’s budding slave army might have done or not done, it’d always take Moira and Patrick from him in the end, always send Rapture spiraling to hell and back up to this bizarre equilibrium, this unstable purgatory.  He believes that, perhaps because he has to. 

Jack meets him just inside the shadow of the overhang, stumbles into him hard though the press of his weight isn’t a shock.  One of his knees at least is almost is entirely blown out; Atlas watched the blow that did it.  He’s ready to catch him, draws him in and uses Jack’s momentum to lead them both back toward the hallway, toward spilling light that’ll give him a better view. 

“Was rough there at the end.  I wasn’t…I wasn’t…”  Blood trickles from the corner of Jack’s mouth and he coughs, licks at the trail, and leans in to drape his arm just a little more heavily over Atlas’s shoulders.  “You feel hot.” 

“You’re bleedin’ out, boyo.  I’m t’same as always.”  His fingers find Jack’s, feel the chill of them, the tremor in them that’s so violent it takes a few tries before Atlas can lace their hands together.  He doesn’t have to look down to know that the smooth, wet arch he feels beneath the pad of his middle finger is a rib.  Nor does he have to look to know that there is too much emptiness, the chasm in Jack’s side too wide.  The muscle that should be brushing his wrist isn’t just torn; it’s been completely ripped away.  Atlas sighs, uses the tug of his right hand at the back of Jack’s neck to pull him in close enough to murmur against his cheek.  “I’m sorry, love.  Can’t put a bandage on that one.” 

The noise Jack makes is low and warm, somewhere between a hum of acquiescence and a groan of need.  His hand squeezes at Atlas’s, his grip itself feeble but focused enough in its intent that Atlas feels the jolt of lightning.  His right gropes aimlessly, fists so hard in Atlas’s shirt the sudden pressure of taut fabric against the back of his neck jerks him forward. 

“ ‘s alright.  I know.”  The noise that bubbles from his throat on the tail of his words _is_ a moan, unmistakable.  He sways forward, leans into the full press of Atlas’s body knowing he’ll be caught and held.  He is; he always is.  The rhythm of his breath is uneven where it falls against Atlas’s neck, his mouth weak but eager, an erratic moth beating its wings against his pulse. 

Atlas isn’t sure if he’s more ashamed of the faint bulge of arousal he can feel Jack’s body fighting hard to maintain, or the quickly rising jut of his own.  Maybe the answer is both, maybe neither.  He can’t think on it too long; Jack doesn’t have the time and besides, any argument he might have with himself is old, tired, a paper thin defense against the realities of Rapture, of he and Jack and whatever it is they have become. 

He lets instinct take him, shifts his grip on the back of Jack’s neck and holds him steady to claim a kiss that feels as natural as breath.  Jack opens to him the way only Jack ever has, mouth slack but tongue working against his, little mewling sounds slipping between them to rattle around under Atlas’s skin, searing heat in their wake.  He’s so weak he’s barely standing, clinging to Atlas for all he’s worth, but he kisses like he can’t get enough, like they’re home in bed and Atlas is already inside him, taking him apart. 

They part for breath and Jack’s fingers convulse around his shirt, his teeth gentle as he nips beseechingly at the line of Atlas’s jaw.  “Please, Atlas, _please_ ; fuck, I need—“ 

“I know what you need, darlin’, but I think we’re gonna have to wait.”  The arm he’d slid around Jack’s waist to catch him when he’d pressed close tightened, underlining his point.  He was supporting half of Jack’s weight, easy.  If he let him go, it wasn’t too likely he’d be able to stand longer than a minute at best.  It wouldn’t be as quick as a gunshot to the chest, but he had a half hour left tops unless Atlas helped things along.  Shit, even the fleeting thought made him grimace, throat tight as he buried his face in the hollow of Jack’s neck.  “Soon as you wake up, I’ll give you anything you like.  On my honor.” 

He says it, _means_ it, but even as he does, Jack’s hand leaves his wound to slip beneath the hem of Atlas’s shirt.  His palm is blood slick, trembling, cold.  Atlas swallows against jolt of heat down his spine, tamps down the moan that threatens to rise with the stroke of Jack’s s thumb against his belly.  He could stop this now; Jack couldn’t refuse him if he did it right.  The words may taste like poison on his tongue, but he could say them, if he was sure he needed to.  He’s done worse things. 

Jack pulls back enough to look at him while he’s still considering, the look in his eyes such a mix of pain and pleasure he looks drugged, pupils blown wide.  “Atlas.”  He says it so slow, so reverent, rolling off his tongue like honey.  “Please?” 

Atlas licks his lips, nuzzles against Jack to leave a kiss at his temple.  “Hush now.  Hold onto me.”  He scoops Jack up before he can reconsider, cradles him against his chest before he heads off down the halls at a quick clip.  Jack whimpers a little as his tattered knee bends, turns his head to lap at the skin bared by the gaping collar of Atlas’s shirt.  In this post battle haze he’s trapped in a limbo that can’t last, walking a fine line of programmed desire and spikes of pleasure that only fight the truth of trauma for so long.  The trigger phrases Fontaine enmeshed into his creations have a great deal of power over the mind to be sure, but even the mind can’t conquer everything.  Sooner or later, ripped organ feel like ripped organs, no matter how hard you try.  Atlas knows; he’s seen the change happen right before his eyes, seen his careful training reach past its limits and snap like a rubber band. 

He can feel that very tension rising now, in the arch and twist of the body in his arms, the rapid breath that stutters when Jack hauls himself up a little higher around Atlas’s neck, dragging the wound rough against his chest.    In the back of Atlas’s mind, there’s the image of sand shifting through a broken hourglass, tumbling and sliding, whispering—

A door bangs down the hall and they both jump, four hands clenching as the laugher of a wandering splicer bounces down the concrete walls.  Down here, locked away from the exodus of the precious proper citizens, the splicers are left to roam, set free and wild until they’re herded together again for next week’s fight.  The wilds of Rapture spiral out into this world below, a lingering, bloody testament to the war that almost took the city apart.  Ryan’s big on vivid reminders. 

Atlas kisses Jack’s forehead, quick but soothing.  “Ah, he can’t hurt us.  He’s farther than he sounds, but don’t you worry.  I’ll lock the door, and we won’t be stayin’.”  Still, he doesn’t pick the first holding room or even the second, ducks instead into the fourth holding cell down the passageway.  The door’s solid in this one, and more often than not they keep slaves in here for the overnight tournaments, not splicers.  It’s marginally less of a mess, and down here, a little of anything goes a long way. 

The floor is littered with empty hypos and pep bar wrappers, the stained mattress on the floor folded in half and rammed into a corner.  The gurney beneath the window seems a better option all around, bloodstained and listing a little toward the broken wheels at one end, but it’ll be easier to lay Jack out on it, and there’s something to be said for the lights of Rapture spilling in behind water and glass.  It’s a reprieve from the darkness, better than the sickly, flickering glow of dying lightbulbs.  When he’s like this, stripped raw and aching, Jack needs to see his face.  What he’s looking for Atlas is never entirely certain, but if he had a bullet for every time Jack’s died with his eyes open and pulling him closer, they’d have busted out of this hellhole twice over. 

He lays Jack down it with the utmost care, shushing him and leaning in when Jack refuses to let him go.  He’s got one hand wrapped around the lapel of Atlas’s shirt, the other buried in his hair, clinging and murmuring his name like if he lets go Atlas will dissipate to nothing right before his eyes. 

Atlas’s fingers squeeze against his, once and then again.  He’s fading, too close to the end for reason.  Atlas breathes deep,  leans down for a kiss so thorough the pounding of blood in his ears almost overpowers his whisper against the corner of Jack’s lips.  “Would you kindly let me go for a minute, boyo?  If we’re doin’ this, it’s gotta be now.” 

Jack’s hands go limp, fall like dead weight to land against his own chest.  For a fleeting second there’s a look of confusion in his eyes so pained it’s close to panic, too sharp for Atlas to bear.  Hands that had already gone to shrug off his suspenders fall back to Jack, one on his chest, the other cradling his cheek as Atlas paints his apology with kisses brushed against the soft skin of eyelids that flutter beneath his lips. 

“I’m right here.  I’m right here, darlin’; I’m not leaving you.  I’d never leave you, d’you understand?”  He doesn’t wait for answer.  Instead, Atlas pulls away as quick as he fell back, forces himself to look anywhere but at Jack while he works his belt open.  His cock’s hard already when he frees it, though he gives a couple strokes to fill it further.  He can feel the brush of Jack’s fingers against his thigh, faint but reaching, and it hits him hard.  His breath catches, cock throbbing against his palm when he looks down to see the way Jack’s watching him, the shallow rise and fall of his breath, the blood trickling from his mouth.  Between his legs, his left hand kneads impatiently, still faintly crackling.  The blood loss might be robbing him of any sustainable erection, but it can’t take away his desire. 

He has needs now that only Atlas can sate.  The thought pushes him forward, hands quick and sure as they bat Jack’s out of the way to get his pants open and pull them down.  Jack’s cock is limp but twitching, struggling to rise just like his legs struggle to fall open the further down Atlas tugs his pants.  When he reaches the knee he’s got the urge to be careful, but it’d take time they don’t have and he’s not sure it’d be a kindness.  He pulls in one sharp movement instead, one hand shifting to rub at the inside of Jack’s thigh as he cries out. 

“Easy, easy, love.  I’ve got you.”  They’re both bare from the waist down; it’s good enough.  At least, it’s good enough for him, but the way Jack whines and clutches at him reminds him just how much Jack craves skin on skin.  He gives up on buttons and rips their shirts open, his first before Jack’s.  Jack’s takes more force than he expects, already hanging in tatters like it is.  The blood makes it heavy and wet, thick and harder to tear, but he’s got a decent patch open and he rests enough of his weight on Jack to let him feel it.  The way he moans into Atlas’s mouth makes it well worth the time lost.  This is, after all, all about Jack—if he can’t change Jack’s life down here, the best he can do is make it better. 

That’s been his mantra from the beginning, repeated every time he feels like he’s losing his grip.  He might have made Jack and bleed and scream, might have done things to him he’d never have contemplated carrying out on the worst soul up on the surface, but he’s done it all out of love, and doesn’t that matter?  If _anything_ matters down here beyond survival, love has to be it.  They’ve got nothing else, only love and blood and death, metal and muscle and bone. 

The first time Jack came when Atlas cut him, the memory had kept him up days on end.  He cried when Jack couldn’t see, raking sobs that took him past the point of nausea, kept him shaking until he was heaving dry into a filthy toilet somewhere in the ruins.  Huddled on the floor in a limp pile, he’d finally been stilled into quiet horror at the realization that by most standards, he’d made Jack a monster.  Two years on, and the last time he’d cried was at least seven months ago, maybe eight, maybe more. 

If he’s made Jack a monster, at least he’s made himself one, too.   

Atlas settles in, arms curving strong around Jack to hold him tight as they kiss, breathless and deep.  If he had the time, he could do this for ages, revel in the feel of Jack’s body writhing underneath him, the sweet taste of his mouth.  The swirl of Jack’s blood on his tongue has long since ceased to repulse him.  He breaks it off only reluctantly, panting against Jack’s mouth like the effort might breathe a little more life into him.  The roll of his hips brings his cock nudging against Jack’s ass, Jack’s thighs trembling with the strain as they fight to fall open wider.  It has to be now, like this. 

His shifts so his forehead rests against Jack’s, his eyes shuttering closed.  “I need you tell me when it hurts, love.  When nothin’ I say or do about it can help you a damn bit, would you kindly promise you’ll tell me the truth?  However you can?”    

Jack hums, tugs Atlas’s lower lip between his teeth and sucks lightly.  It’s answer enough. 

Blood’s a terrible lube he knows from experience, but it’s all he’s got.  His hand’s covered in it already from holding Jack’s when he first came out of the arena but it’s sticky, clotting, maddeningly unhelpful.  He swears, reaches down to press his hand to the gaping hole in Jack’s side.  It’s still leaking steadily, fresh blood seeping out around his fingers the minute he presses down.  The strangled sound Jack makes draws Atlas back to his mouth, kissing him until his hand is wet and he’s swallowed down enough sound that Jack’s gone almost quiet.  His pleas are soft, nails sharp against Atlas’s back as his body arches up to take everything Atlas might give him with equal abandon. 

Atlas shushes him wordlessly, palms his cock twice though he knows logically it’s more for his benefit than Jack’s.  There’s not enough there to help, not even after he spits into his palm and spreads it out.  There’s no way around hurting him if he does this, but even if Jack were more lucid than he is Atlas knows it’s nothing he wouldn’t ask for.  They take pleasure straight up by preference when and where they can, but after all they’ve done together, after all Atlas has taught him to be, there’s nothing he can do to Jack he won’t get off on.  Nothing at all. 

There’s part of him that wishes the reverse wasn’t also true, but there’s no denying that even knowing what he’s about to do, his cock is still rock hard.  He’s not too eager to think about what that says, so he shoves it back, fills his strong hands with a firm grip on his lover’s ass and pushes in.  He’s impossibly tight, searing hot. 

Jack’s scream is cracked, broken, but there’s no trace of pain or fear in the moans that follow it.  His body shows all the strain his mind refuses, shaking so hard beneath him that Atlas feels it as a vibration against his chest, fading down to the point where they’re joined.  Jesus, he’s so tight it’s hard to move.  He groans, low and filthy, head hanging as he nuzzles against Jack’s ear.

“Shit, you’re so fuckin’ tight.  Like we’d never done this at all.”  As he says it, voice dripping sex, he realizes even as Jack’s moaning that even though the shock of pressure around his cock was thrilling, there’s something about that feeling of newness that troubles him, a quiet snarl in his chest that whispers its desire to fuck Jack open, to make his body remember.  Atlas shivers, rocks his hips a little a deeper and feels so little give in return.  “Would you kindly relax for me, darlin’?  Your body’s tellin’ you it’ll hurt, I know, but I’d never let it.  You’ll be coming for me before I let you go; I can promise you that.” 

Jack’s head tilts back to bear his throat, a weary half nod of submission, though he needn’t have bothered.  His body has already complied for him, clenched muscles relaxing enough that Atlas can move more freely, his thrusts measured and deep.  After that, everything narrows to the only points that matter—the drag of his cock, the light touch of Jack’s weakened hands, the half sob that leaves him when Atlas murmurs his love against the thready beat of his pulse.   

It’s all too short.  Before he’s ready to face it, he can feel Jack slipping, feel the clinging hold on his shoulder blade turning to a resting weight.  The sound he makes is scrunched and wounded, confused.  Before he even tries to speak, Atlas knows.  Even if he’d felt no other change, it’s right there before him in the glint of Jack’s eyes.  Their faint glow is dimming, fear insinuating itself into warm hazel with a slow creep.  He’s so far gone, the pieces that hold him together are failing. 

He swallows heavily, tries without success to get a better grip on Atlas’s shoulder.  “Hurts.  Atlas, it—“

“Shhh.  I’m takin’ care of it.”  He forces himself to pause, still buried inside Jack as he leans heavy on one arm to reach out and grope at the pile of clothes until he finds his own pockets, the weight of the blade clunking against the back of his knuckles.  He picked up the straight razor on an excavation through Sander’s old residence last year, the sorry bastard.  It’s a fine blade though, even if it did touch that one’s mad hands. 

Atlas still remembers well how it had felt to take it, the way he’d weighed it in his hands, the shuddering pound of his heart in his throat as he’d first cleaned it off with vodka and a scrap of old shirt.  He was careful to keep it like that, sharp and clean, no splicer blood, no burrs on the edge.  There was a difference in teaching Jack to love what he had to endure and a tool for ending misery past the point of no return.  Everything else was a necessary evil; this little slip of silver was mercy. 

He’d never be sorry for mercy, but none of that made it a damn sight easier to pull across Jack’s throat.  He’d done it now more times than he could count and it’d brought him to his knees every time, but he’d never…it’d never been quite like this.  Up until now, they’d kept a fairly clean split—either he was so bad Atlas used the blade straight off or he was decent enough to make it but not enough that a few med kits’d get him back on his feet.  This was limbo, surreal and fever bright.  Whatever he felt on that score, he couldn’t let Jack see it, could afford no hesitation. 

Atlas palms the blade, adjusts to rest squarely on top of him again with a nudge of his hips that Jack welcomed with a gasp, wet with the increase of blood in his mouth.  He’s so close to everything, riding a wire of ecstasy and horror so tightly bound it takes time to unravel. 

Atlas’s kiss to the corner of his lips is chaste, lingering.  His knuckles brush Jack’s throat, razor curled still closed in the palm of his hand.  He can feel the beat of Jack’s heart against his chest, the flutter of muscle as he starts to move again, fucking into him slow and careful. 

“Jack.”  He sounds hoarse to his own ears, clears his throat and kisses Jack’s cheek and tries again.  “Jack, you’re still feeling pretty high, aren’t you?  Think you can get off for me when I start this cut?  Would you kindly try?”

Jack groans, a wavering sound Atlas isn’t certain of until he sees the flick of Jack’s tongue across his lips, hears a low mutter that might be a yes.  He has to hope it was, at least, because they’re out of time. 

With a flick of his wrist Atlas frees the blade, rises carefully up to rest higher on his elbows.  Beneath him Jack blinks slowly, catlike, tips his head as far back as he can to offer himself to his killer.  There’s something almost peaceful about his acceptance even with the shake of his body, the rattle of his breath.  It’s so Jack it hurts, weighs so heavy he can feel that gaze like a rock in his throat, like needles in his eyes.  His eyes burn acid wet and he blinks, dips to kiss a patch of Jack’s throat still milk white. 

“Goodnight, love.”  He moves quickly then, eager to swipe once and have it done but Jack surprises him, the last of his strength thrown into a move that draws a cry full of too much pain, his hand catching Atlas’s wrist. 

He staves off any of Atlas’s questions before he can get them out with a squeeze, mouth working ineffectively once before his whisper is audible.  “Don’t stop.  After I—  Want you to—“  He coughs, struggles to try again but Atlas shakes his head, knocks the back of his hand gently against Jack’s chin to quiet him. 

“I hear you.  I do.  No stopping till it’s all over.”  For _both_ of them, he means.  The kid knows him too well; left to his own devices he’d likely have pulled back unfinished (or so he tells himself, words propped up by conviction he’s not sure he’d trust to hold in a strong wind), but if it’s not what Jack wants, how can he say no?  He’s torn, something at the back of his mind so frightened by his lack of disturbance it’s almost screaming, but Jack’s hurting in his arms and his balls are aching and he has no room in his head for rules of behavior formed outside the sea. 

He strikes quick, a single cut that’s long and deep.  When he practiced on splicers with a dismantled pair of scissors, his first attempts weren’t so perfect.  There were hesitation marks, the product of telling his mind to treat the drugged thing in front of him like it was Jack in truth, making himself feel it so strong he could hardly bear to lift his arm.  The more he worked at it, the better he got and oddly enough, with Jack it was easier.  He gave himself no margin of error, here.  Death had to be clean and quick, every time. 

It comes for him so fast this time he barely has time to react, only a brief convulsion as his neurons fire, eager to follow orders and bring him over the edge before he blinks out.  It’s aborted, little more than a quick contraction of muscles as his nerves short out, but it’s better than nothing.  Atlas thrusts in hard at the clench of his ass, chasing muscle contractions, swiveling hips on the off chance that as Jack’s going out, he’ll hit him just right.  He’s spluttering, drowning in the welling blood.  Exsanguination is never pretty.  No end ever is. 

Rather than look away, Atlas draws closer, hunches so close over his love there’s no space between them at all.  There’s just Jack, gasping and dying, and Atlas, lips touching his, breathing the air Jack can’t reach and pushing it back into his pointlessly fluttering mouth in words he’s not even sure Jack hears. 

“I love you.  God, I love you, Jack Ryan.  I love you, I love you…” 

The gasping stops, but true to his word, he doesn’t.  The hand Jack had managed to keep pressed to his shoulder goes utterly limp, falls aside at the movement of Atlas’s shoulders to hang limp over the edge of the gurney.  Jack’s eyes are still open, sightless, all trace of light gone.  Rather than pause to close them Atlas hides his face from their gaze, curls inward and buries himself into the ruined mess of Jack’s throat.  He can taste the ADAM on his blood, feel the weak trickle as what’s left of it keeps spilling, a river out of control. 

He cries out as he comes, a wail that echoes.  The feel of his cock pumping is secondary to the burn in his chest, the sharp agony of all that’s missing.  Jack should be all over him now, petting at his hair, making low, needy sounds in his ear as Jack tells him how good it is to feel him come.  Even in the quiet, there’s always the sound of his breath, the quick nuzzle of cheek against Atlas’s that speaks volumes.  There’s nothing of Jack in this silence, just the cooling warmth of the body he left behind, the slow drip of his blood onto concrete. 

Atlas is alone. 

Slowly, he disentangles himself from limbs that don’t fight to hold him, pulls out and away until he’s stumbling shakily to his feet.  With his shirt torn open, the refracted light from the window catches on the glint of metal just beneath the curve of Jack’s collarbone.  Fine silver wire, dipped in ADAM and bound into his skin so long ago now it seems strange to remember a time when it wasn’t there. 

 _Atlas_. 

It was Jack’s choice, every bit of it from the word to the decision to go with something a little more permanent than ink.  Fontaine had marked his wrists with chains without his consent; of his own free will he’d given Atlas his heart. 

He hardly realizes he’s stepping back until he goes down, so weak kneed the slightest turn of his ankle brings him toppling over.  He can’t seem to blink, eyes locked on silver wire and the drip, drip, drip of blood spilled.  His palm presses to his mouth, sticks there and jerks away.  There’s blood all over his mouth, his cheek, the collar of his shirt.  His name’s gleaming stark on Jack’s skin, sure, but there’s a little bit of Jack everywhere. 

The laugh that bubbles in his chest starts as nothing more than a rough chuckle, gains momentum until his shoulders are shaking with it, until the pitch rises to the point of mania, breath shortened until the room spins and he’s forced to lay against the concrete to make it stop.  There’s an ache in his ribs as the laughter stops, a burning in his throat that’s half from use half from rising bile, but he’s unwilling to lift his cheek off the floor.  He clenches his jaw, clings to the ground like a man hungover. 

By the time he can breathe easy again, the dripping has stopped.  He stands carefully, pulls his pants on and collects the blade.  It’s only after he’s folded it that he allows himself to look properly at Jack again, the glaring emptiness of his beautiful eyes.  A smile tugs at his lips, and he eases his eyelids closed with infinite tenderness, his whisper soft as he leans in to kiss Jack’s forehead.

“There, now.  That’s better, isn’t it?”

He folds Jack easily into his arms, lolling head tucked gently in against his shoulder as he starts off toward the Vita Chamber three halls down. 

==========

While Jack is healing, Atlas sits backwards on a creaking folding chair and starts in on a pack of cigarettes.  He’s got little use for the EVE in them; with only a couple plasmids at his disposal it’s not like he’s running through hypos on a daily basis.  Jack needs it more than him and for that he usually saves these things, or shares, but for him smoking’s an old vice that goes back to his years on the surface, back to Ireland.  Sometimes, he can’t help but indulge. 

He takes a deep drag, flicks ash into the shallow puddle at his feet and remembers his last smoke on the surface, the last kiss of sunshine on his skin.  Moira had hung on his arm, giggling and eager to pull him toward the lighthouse and their new life.  Patrick wasn’t even born.  Jack neither, for that matter. 

The man he’d been then wouldn’t have recognized _this_ one, covered in blood with a ripped shirt, smoking cheap laced cigarettes in a derelict ruin with pistol tucked into the back of his pants and his reviving slave lover not 6 feet away.  That man on the surface, he’d still kept his grandmother’s rosary in his pocket.  Atlas wasn’t sure when or where he’d lost it, could barely recall the last time he’d pulled it out after a morning cup of coffee.  Thinking of it he couldn’t help but miss it, only to chuckle quick and dark as he shook his head once.  He missed it, but he’d have little use for it now.  After all, how many Hail Mary’s did you say after fucking a dead man?  No amount of years in the seminary could have prepared any priest to lecture on the ins and outs of life in Rapture. 

The door to the Vita Chamber pops open with a hiss, drawing Atlas to his feet so quick the cigarette tumbles from his fingers into the water.  Jack steps out to meet him whole and bright, eyes sparkling behind the glow that unsettled so many.  Atlas’s arms open to him and he goes into them eagerly, his grip tight around Atlas’s neck, voice muffled against his hair. 

“I love you, too.  I love you.” 

At a loss for words, Atlas clutches him fiercely tight, hides his face against the beautifully solid column of Jack’s neck and breathes.  It isn’t wise to linger, not on a route splicers were too damn likely to take.  When he stops trembling, maybe he’ll be able to give that thought the proper attention it deserves. 

==========

In bed, they share cigarettes, shotgunning smoke from each other’s mouths more often than they take a pull for their own sake.  They’re curled naked and clean under a blanket so soft they’d killed three men to get it, Jack’s smile incandescent with his chin resting on Atlas’s chest.  They’d made love after dinner, properly—no pain involved but the kind carried in the way Jack said his name. 

Atlas sighs, rakes his fingers through soft hair that would’ve been more blonde and less brown sand if the kid got a little sun.  “One of these days, boyo, I’m gonna get us out of here.  Swear to God; you’ll see the sun and taste proper air if it’s the last thing I do.”  He’s said it hundred times; he’ll say it a hundred more.  He has no plan that could hold up to his speculations of how Ryan would foil it, no means, no tangible hope.  All he has is love, and the memory of Dublin undimmed.  Nelson’s pillar covered in snow.  The Ha’penny Bridge in July, steam rising off the water after a rain.  St. Mary’s backed by a blue sky, a rare cloudless day.  He strokes the pad of thumb across Jack’s temple, smiles around the cigarette dangling from his lips.  “You’ll love Ireland, Jack.  She’s beautiful.” 

“Like you?”  He kisses Atlas’s chest, smiles against his skin when he feels Atlas laugh.  “That’s what Ireland is to me, you know.  I hear it in your voice; I have since the first time I heard you speak.  Fontaine said he was Irish too, but…”  He shakes his head, forehead slightly furrowed in confusion when Atlas glances down at him.  “I can’t explain it.  He had a voice like the devil, but yours…it’s Ireland, and it’s you.  At least, it sounds like Ireland, the way you talk about it.  Maybe it’s all just you I hear; I don’t know.”  He laughs lightly, eager to downplay his rambling, but he shouldn’t.  There’s something about him, maybe the early plasmid use, maybe the genetic engineering.  Whatever it is, the kid’s smarter than he gives himself credit for, than _anyone_ but Atlas gives him credit for.  He’s clever, perceptive beyond belief.  If anyone can hear Ireland in the twist of words, he’d believe Jack can. 

Jack shifts against his side, nestling in a little higher, a little closer.  “You said slaves don’t have to fight in Ireland.”

“There’s no slaves in Ireland, Jackie.  Just free men.”  Like Ryan had said there would be here.  He’d promised freedom, greater and wider and deeper than any they could imagine back home.  Atlas’s jaw clenches. 

“So it’d…I mean I’d be…you and I could—“  He trips all over himself, draws up short with a flush to his cheeks that makes Atlas hurt. 

He doesn’t have the heart to tell him the truth.  Not when they’ll never actually get there, anyway.  “Oh, aye.  You best believe I’d be makin’ an honest man out of you at the first available opportunity.  Take you to my old St. Mary’s with Father O’Kelley, right out in the front steps so we could say our vows out in the light.”  Jesus, it’s a good image, bright and warm and utterly beyond the realm of possibility.  He remembers too well the taste in his mouth as he knelt in confession, the dizzying scent of incense he’d tried not to pass out breathing as he told about the boy he’d looked too long at, the boy that made him want to preen and impress every bit as much as Susan Carter had.

“How does it go?”  Jack’s whisper snaps him back to reality, full of love and wonder.  “I’ve never seen a wedding.” 

Atlas clears his throat.  “Well, first off he’d say something like, ‘Dearly beloved, we gather here today to see this beautiful young boy take this sorry old bastard, for reasons I can’t properly understand, seeing as he could do so much better for himself.’ “

Jack’s laugh is infections, his swat against Atlas’s chest carrying a playful glaze of ice.  “From everything you’ve told me, I don’t think he’d say ‘bastard’.”

“Would you kindly keep your mouth shut while the Father’s talkin’?  Sometimes I swear I don’t know where you learned those manners.”  They’re both laughing now, Jack’s hand moving to swipe at him again until Atlas catches it and holds it, draws it in to press a kiss to the chain on his wrist.  “Now where was I?  Just gettin’ to the part where he asks us if we take each other, and we say our vows.” 

Jack’s hand twists, fingers twining with his.  “And you say, ‘Jack Ryan, would you—“

Hands still joined, Atlas presses the back of his to Jack’s mouth, stopping him in his tracks.  “Not like that, lad.  Never like that.  I’d want the truth; it’d be up to you.”  There’s contrition in Jack’s eyes, but he doesn’t need to hear it.  On some level, it’s good to see that Jack takes the whole thing lighter than he does, that he _can_.  If he was abusing the power, _really_ abusing it the way Fontaine or Ryan would have, surely Jack wouldn’t be so quick to throw the words around.  Atlas shakes himself, clears his head with a gentle brush of his knuckles against Jack’s lips.  “He’d say….d’you take this man, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, for as long as we both shall live?”  The more of the words he says, the more their gravity pulls him down, his voice so thick with emotion by the end that it’s hard to finish. 

Jack blinks, and it’s only the flicker of light at the lashes that tells Atlas they’re wet.  “Not as long as we both live once; that’s too short.  I want you in every one of them.  The last thing I see and the first.”  He drags himself up to line up with Atlas, breath catching as Atlas’s arm curves closer around his waist.  “Would they let us change that part?” 

Atlas pulls him into a kiss, parts Jack’s lips with a gentle tongue and explores his mouth with deliberation until he can feel Jack melting against him.  It’s insane, ludicrous to think that in the midst of hell, this boy who was never supposed to have a mind of his own dares to look at him like he is right now.  Even if they never make it out of here, even if he dies wishing every last bit of the fantasy he’s spinning could hold some grain of truth, he’ll still be the luckiest bastard alive. 

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler-y list of 'Would You Kindly' s: 
> 
> -Atlas almost uses it to get Jack not to want sex after he's come out of the arena, but he changes his mind. The first actual use is him getting Jack to let go of him while Jack's only partially lucid, so Atlas can step back and get out of his clothes.  
> -He uses it to essentially make Jack promise to safeword, tell him to let him know the minute things start to actually hurt outside the conditioning so Jack knows when to kill him.  
> -He then also uses it to get Jack's body to relax while fucking him without lube, and to induce a dry, limp orgasm as he starts to cut Jack's throat.  
> -Atlas teasing says it to tell him he should be quite while the priest is speaking, but there's no actual priest there. They're just discussing a hypothetical marriage. In that discussion, Jack makes a quip about WYK and vows but Atlas shoots it down quick.


End file.
